Friday, May 8, 2009

Long ago, in the midst of druidly wanderings around Azeroth, a seal-form friend and I stumbled across an empty cottage nestled away in the side of the mountains along the Great Sea, north of Stormwind. It was deserted and in disrepair, with bones littering the floor, though had a dock running the length of the water's edge. Judging by the fanged teeth in the skulls, they were not humans or dwarves that had inhabited this cabin, or at least that had died there. One skeleton was in the fireplace.

A signpost outside announced the location to be Newman's Landing, and when anyone tried to locate you, your location was Unknown.

The recent cross-blog chatterings about newbie memories reminded me of my adventure to this place, so I took it upon myself to swim out there today and relocate it. Indeed, I did find it again! But... it seems like someone else has found it, too.

Goblins! They're flagged to Booty Bay, and the retired High Admiral is spending his days fishing and offering repair/blacksmithing services to whoever happens to find him!

A bit of googling uncovered that his existence (along with the change that the location is now in Dun Morogh) is new to patch 3.0.2. There are some interesting theories about this place as a smuggler's den or having been wiped out by plague, and even possibly as a place that newly made characters appear briefly without knowing it before being ported to their starting zones. I haven't seen any newbies appear there, but hey, who knows?

3 comments:

I find it odd that it was added so recently, amidst all of the expansion changes that would otherwise attract the developer attention. Why add a repair goblin and two "guards" out in the middle of nowhere? Who seriously swims out there, or along any of those ignored coastlines? Is it reference to a retired Blizzard employee?

I wonder if they added anything new to any of the other hidden "easter egg" locations...